Before decimal currency – Dickens translation/Probleme vor der Dezimalwährung

Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, chapter 12, Mr Micawber:

Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.

Fürther Nachrichten, and possibly the German translation of Dickens – this comment on the financial crisis puzzled me in the daily paper:

Jährliches Einkommen zwanzig Pfund, jährliche Ausgaben neunzehn Pfund und sechs Schillinge, Resultat Glück. Jährliches Einkommen zwanzig Pfund, jährliche Ausgaben zwanzig Pfund und sechs Schillinge, Resultat Elend.

No, Projekt Gutenberg has a better translation – presumably done before 1971 – the foreword is dated March 1909:

Jährliches Einkommen 20 Pfund. Jährliche Ausgabe 19 Pfund 19 Schilling 6 Pence. Fazit: Wohlstand. Jährliches Einkommen 20 Pfund. Jährliche Ausgabe 20 Pfund und 6 Pence. Fazit: Dürftigkeit.

Ingeborg Bachmann prize/Preis

Yet again I was too busy to digest the Bachmann prize contenders’ texts in advance and come to my own conclusion. Every time I switched on or played back, the texts seemed rather pedestrian and descriptive. The NZZ referred to belangloser Realismus, which seemed right (links in Perlentaucher).

I liked the winning entry by Tilman Rammstedt a lot, but perhaps it won by default. It was notable that only men won prizes, although probably justified in this case. I had the chance of listening to it live, but the reading was dreadfully fast and irritating.

As mentioned before, the texts can be read in English (and other languages) this year. Here’s the winning one.

So what translators did they choose? Only two into English: Martin Chalmers, who has translated Jelinek, Kluge, Enzensberger, Klemperer and more, and Stefan Tobler, who translates from German and Portuguese.

I can’t say I’ve spent long reading the translations, and what I have seened looked OK – in any case, the texts are not of the most demanding kind. But my suspicions were aroused by the translation of Wissenschaft as science at the beginning of the text by Dagrun Hintze (I would have chosen the adjectives academic or scholarly for wissenschaftlich).

Du hast vergessen, wie man das auseinander hält, Definition für Definition, aber wundern kann dich das nicht, mit der Wissenschaft gab es von Anfang an diese Schwierigkeit, dieses Fehlverhalten auf deiner Seite, weißt du noch, der Dozent in Bart und Sandalen, gleich unter die erste Hausarbeit nur ein Satz, dafür in Rot, dein erstes präzis formuliertes, scharlachfarbenes Waterloo: Das ist kein wissenschaftliches Arbeiten. Du hingegen hattest gedacht, der Text würde leuchten, als Beispiel, und so verflucht viel Brillanz bei einer Erstsemesterin, stattdessen dieser scharlachfarbene Satz, du hast zwei Wochen zu Hause gelegen, geheult, den Dozenten dann nicht mehr gegrüßt, das Seminar penibel geschwänzt, als ob das irgendwas nützte.

You have forgotten how to distinguish between things, definition by definition, but that shouldn’t surprise you, you always had this difficulty with science right from the start, this abnormal behaviour, do you remember the bearded, sandal-wearing lecturer, just one sentence at the bottom of your first essay, but in red, your first, precisely formulated, scarlet Waterloo: This is not a scientific approach. You, however, had thought that the text shone, was a beacon, for a first semester student so damned full of brilliance, instead that scarlet sentence, you lay at home for two weeks, you wailed, then didn’t ever say hello to the lecturer again, embarrassingly you skived the seminar, as if that helped.

I’m not sure who’s going to be reading these translations. Perhaps it will start with the Goethe Institutes. Perhaps Klagenfurt has a broader competition in mind in future – an amazing and probably doomed idea.

Don Dahlmann links to a list (German) of tips on how to win and how to lose the competition – I’m not sure of their origin (the ‘open mike’ recommendation didn’t work this time:

Pluspunkte:
Autorenporträt und Textform:
1. Lastenausgleich: Autor hat nicht in der NVA gedient
2. Lastenausgleich: Autor ist kein junges Mädchen
3. Lastenausgleich: Autor hat am Leipziger Literaturinstitut studiert
4. schnörkelloser Lebenslauf ohne Preise, ohne Aufenthalte, ohne Hobbys (“Schreiben”, “Breakdance”, “Leichenwaschen”)
5. Gute Typo
6. Autor ist Träger interessanter Preise (Stipendium der Raketenstation Hombroich, Walter-Fick-Preis)
7. Keine “open mike”-Teilnahme / Teilnahme wird im Lebenslauf verschwiegen

Minuspunkte:
Autorenporträt und Textform:

1. Multiple Wohnorte in der Biografie (jeder Wohnort > 1 bringt einen Minuspunkt)
2. Hand im Gesicht auf dem Autorenfoto
3. Lastenausgleich: Autor sieht außergewöhnlich gut aus
4. Brücken, Flüsse, Seen, Ufer im Autorenporträt
5. Bahnhöfe, Züge, Gleise, Bahnsteige, Flughäfen im Autorenporträt
6. Rolltreppen, Rollbänder, Aufzüge, Großaufnahme gehender Füße im Autorenporträt
7. Bücherregale im Autorenporträt

Best literary translations of 2007 / Beste Literaturübersetzungen ins Englische 2007

three percent, a ‘Resource for international literature at the University of Rochester’ (links, weblog, translation program), has published a longlist of the best literary translations in 2007. Not much German, but Der Gehilfe by Robert Walser could be fun.

Here’s the analysis.

Twenty-one languages are represented on the list, with French (11 books or 22%) being the most, Spanish (10, 20%) in second, and German (4), Russian (4), and Japanese (3) rounding out the top five. Two titles from both Arabic and Hebrew made the list, and the following languages each had one title: Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Flemish, Hungarian, Italian, Korean, Nepali, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Romanian, and Turkish. Overall, a pretty nice balance.

(Thanks to Trevor)

Harry Potter leak / Strafbarkeit der Verbreitung des neuen Harry Potter

The Times online (via Boing Boing) reports that it may be possible to trace the person who leaked the Harry Potter book in photos on the Web yesterday (the publisher, Bloomsbury, won’t confirm that this was genuine, presumably as a damage limitation exercise). The serial number of the camera is part of the EXIF data, and if the camera, an early Digital Rebel, has been repaired or registered, the number will be linked to a name.

However, there would probably be no criminal charges, as there was no commercial gain. Civil damages would be based on the loss in book sales.

If traced, the person who photographed the Harry Potter novel could be found guilty of copyright infringement, but would be unlikely to face criminal charges as the photos appear not to have been published for commercial gain, lawyers said.
“There are criminal provisions in copyright legislation, but they tend to be used in cases of obvious counterfeiting – such as selling fake computer games or DVDs in a car boot sale,” Mark Owen, an intellectual property partner at the London firm Harbottle & Lewis, said. “If Bloomsbury were to pursue an action, it would more likely be a civil case, in which case any damages would be assessed according to the loss in book sales.”

The Times calls the EXIF numbers ‘digital DNA’!

Some EXIF data (bottom left) from a Sony DSC-H5 (click to enlarge).

screenshw.jpg

US bowdlerization of children’s book/Rotraut Susanne Berner und die USA

Pimmel_3_DW_Kultur__312406g.jpg

Something in this picture was too much for Boyds Mills Press in the USA. They wanted to publish a translation of Rotraut Susanne Berner’s children’s book, but without this picture and another picture of a nude, both exhibits in an art gallery. The author insisted on the censorship being made obvious, for example by the pictures being blacked out, so it seems the book is unlikely to appear. Die Welt writes:

Erst im Februar hatten US-Bibliotheken ein preisgekröntes Kinderbuch aus ihren Regalen verbannt, weil auf der ersten Seite das Wort „scrotum“ (Hodensack) vorkam. Zuvor geriet selbst „Harry Potter“ wegen angeblicher Bezüge zum Satanismus unter Beschuss der selbst ernannten Sittenwächter.

Author’s nude drawings too hot for US publisher, from the Independent.
Kein deutscher Mini-Penis für die USA, from Die Welt (with 4 illustrations).

LATER NOTE: for visitors from the Absolute Write Water Cooler, here’s the other offending picture:

Pimmel_1_DW_Kultur__312404g.jpg

This subject is generating as much traffic as my old entry on how IKEA names its furniture.

German literary translators in the press/Die SZ und die Literaturübersetzer

An article in the Süddeutsche Zeitung on 2 February 2007 by Thomas Steinfeld, the editor of the arts pages, is no longer available except for subscribers: Ein Haus für Rechthaber.

It’s described in an article by Burkhard Kroeber on perlentaucher.de. Apparently Steinfeld says the huge decline in literary translations into German over the past year is directly attributable to the desire of literary translators for more money: they see their work only as a financial and bureaucratic reality and give no thought to ‘cultural dialogue’, its most important feature.

Further reactions by literary translators can be found on the website of the VdÜ, the professional association for literary translators.

(Via …is a blog)